Getting included in round-ups and other curated posts is a very effective strategy for promoting your content and growing your traffic, permission marketing assets, and link equity. So I was surprised when we surveyed BuzzStream customers and found that less than a third were looking for content curators and roundups as promotion opportunities.

So today I’m going to show you how to find content curators, connect with them, and gain links, traffic, and audience.

Why Reach Out to Content Curators?

Content curators – the people that publish round ups, links of the week, and the like – actively look for new resources to include in their content. If you’re publishing content on a regular basis (like a blog that’s regularly updated), it’s perfectly appropriate and often welcome to reach out to them and ask them to take a look. (This stands in stark contrast to most link opportunities, where you have to persuade someone to do something they would not do normally.)

These curators are often experts in their fields – after all, they read hundreds of articles in putting these round ups together, often for years – so not only can they help you build audience, but they can help you make better, more differentiated content – the sort that makes the people that land on your pages, and know and trust your brand.

So Who are These Content Creators?

Content curators create content by finding the best of other people’s content.

Twitter Search

You can also find roundups through Twitter search. While there are lots of great tools that search Twitter, Topsy is my go-to for finding curators and round-ups. Any of the queries you’d use for web search will work in Topsy – keep in mind that it doesn’t handle synonyms quite as well as Google so you might need to spend some time playing with queries to find one that works.

How Do You Pitch Them?

Now that you’ve found some curators, you can pitch them.

When you pitch curators, take your newest, most recent content, and send it over to them in a customized pitch, asking them to take a look at it and “see if it’s a fit for this week’s round-up.” (You should, of course, replace “week” with the time interval the round-up covers. And if they’ve branded their round-up and given it a specific name, try to use that name in your outreach.)

Because people do these every week, even if this week (or month) isn’t a good fit or is on a specific theme that your content doesn’t work with, leave the door open and build a relationship, so you can be thought of as nice and respectful for the next time.

As always, try to follow the 3 Ps of Great Outreach and make your pitch personalized, positioned, and persuasive.

Quick Tips for Successful Curator Outreach

Ask for Feedback – These curators see a lot of content so don’t be afraid to ask them what they think or how you can make your content better – especially if you’re just starting out.

Share the Round-Up if You’re Included – This is not only good manners, but also a good way to build a relationship for future round-up inclusion. If you’re creating content on a regular basis, you want to do your best to build a network of friends who also create content on a regular basis and help each other.

Look for Curators in Adjacent Content Markets- If you have a piece that appeals to more than one segment of websites and curators, you can pitch it curators in both markets. For example, if say you used quantified self equipment to measure the impact of your paleo diet, you can reach out to both quantified self bloggers, as well as paleo bloggers. This is a great way to build your audience by appealing to people who are interested in topics that intersect with yours.

Matt works on customer acquisition at BuzzStream. Before BuzzStream, he worked as an SEO Strategist at Portent and a Marketing Manager at AppCentral (acquired by Good Technology).
You can follow Matt on Twitter or Google Plus.